PARADISE

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) This name, of oriental origin, was used by the Greek historians to denote the extensive parks or pleasure grounds of the Persian monarchs, (Xenophon, Cyrop. and (Econom.; Diod. See. xvi. 41., xviii. 36.; described by duintus Curtius, viii. 1., who does not use the word. See also Aulu^ Gellius, ii. 20.) The Septuaginta have employed the word in their translation of Genesis, ii. 8., to signify the abode in which Adam and Eve were placed by their Creator. It also occurs in other parts of their translation. (Numbers, xxiv. 6.; Genesis, xiii. 10.; Ez. xxviii. 13., xxx i. 8.) It is used in the N. T., in the memorable pa age, Luke, xxiii.43. The speculations into which this mysterious pa age has led learned and pious men, in all ages of the church, form too extensive a subject to be entered upon here. The mythologies of many nations contain similar ideas, whether derived from the ancient tradition of a paradise, or formed out of the inherent sense of man of nis own imperfection and longing after a better state, from which he imagines himself to have fallen. (See, especially, the first part of Buttmann'sMythologus, and Bryanfs Mythology.) The rabbis have formed, as usual, a strange collection of legendary tales out of the simple narrative of Scripture. According to them, there is an upper or heavenly, and a lower or earthly paradise. The lower is situated somewhere under the terrestrial equator. Each is divided into seven dwellings, and each of these' is twelve times 10,000 miles in length and breadth. A column ascends from the lower to the upper heaven, by which the souls of the ble ed mount after a temporary sojourn in the former. A wall of partition divides paradise from hell; and this will fall when the Redeemer comes, and all Israel be gathered together in ble edne . The celestial paradise is generally referred to as identical with heaven, or the place of bli hereafter. Some critics, who weigh very nicely our Lord's expre ion in addre ing the penitent thief, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," have imagined the existence of a distinct abode for the souls of the just before the final judgment. When we consider, however, that, upon the authority of another pa age in Scripture, we affirm that our Saviour went down into hell between his death and resurrection, it will be better, perhaps, not to aflSx too definite a meaning either to the one expre ion or the other. The local situation of the terrestrial paradise has been a favourite subject of speculation, both with the fathers of the church and with later inauirers. The reader may consult, if he will, the first volume of the compilation called the Ancient Universal History, where the matter is seriously discu ed at great length; lie will also find it treated in an entertaining article of the Enc. Metropolitan a. ( See also Schulthe , Das Faradics, Zurich, 1816.) The most ordinary opinion has placed it on the Euphrates and Tigris. Joscphus regards the Pison [s. 897]